OT: security

[Bill Campbell]

On Wed, Mar 02, 2011, Ken Cole wrote:
...
>We randomly have given or sold to users their old devices but in our
>case we first run a military grade hard drive "cleansing" application
>over the device first and trust me after that app has run 7 times on
>one hard drive there is nothing that can be recovered!

When I was working for a Navy contractor in the D.C. area, the
only way to cleanse a hard drive would involve heavy sharp
objects, say a 3-pound hammer and a good punch.

The hard disks on our B-3800 main frame were head-per-track
devices with 4ms average access times to anything on the disk.
The lived in cabinets about 4ft high, 24in wide, by 40+in deep.
$DEITY knows how much they cost, but the monthly lease cost on
the system was about $10,000 1970 USD.  Given that the average
price of gold in 1970 was $36.02/ounce and it's around $1,400/oz
today, the monthly lease would be almost $389,000/month today.

Bill
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